Today we’d like to introduce you to Benjamin Gillilan.
Hi Benjamin, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I retired from the Army in 2003 from Fort Hood and knew that I didn’t want to work for anybody. So I started a small landscape business working on my own. After a few years I realized that if I ever wanted any down time I would need help so I started hiring as I became too busy to keep up. We started with maintaining lawns and installing small landscapes and grew to building deck and fences, then in 2015 I was offered the opportunity to purchase a plant nursery. In January of 2016 Grizzly’s hidden Falls Nursery & Landscaping became one big happy business. With many growing pains and a few years at the location we purchased the nursery we made the jump to build new and have plenty of room for growth. The business has been family operated since we started. My youngest son, Josh is 32 years old and has been part of the business since he was 14 and is my right hand man. His wife Mekaela is the nursery manager and our employees that have been loyal for many years are all part of the reason we’ve been able to stay around this long.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Any business owner that is honest will tell you that there are plenty of struggles that help create success. Finding the right people was the biggest struggle in the beginning. It’s easy to hire people but finding the ones that want to help build a lasting and thriving business takes time, and lots of mistakes. Today I have a few that have been part of the family for more than 8 years. Building a great environment where people want to come to work takes time and patience. When we purchased the nursery money became a problem. I bought the nursery knowing that it was struggling but believing that it could be turned around. So for four years the landscape side of the business supported the nursery side and that made for some very challenging times. Once we decided to move and build rom the ground up things changed. The month we officially opened, February 2020, COVID hit us. At first it was worrying since we thought we have to shut down, then we learned we were considered essential and business took off. Since a lot of people were told to stay home we became a place to escape and t start new with gardening and landscaping.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Grizzly’s Hidden Falls Nursery & Landscaping?
While I was retiring from the Army in August 2003 I took over a small lawn mowing business that had 16 customers. By the time November came around I had 35 customers and was off to a great start. After having soldiers to take care of all those years I was ready to just worry about my family and taking care of customers. After a few years I realized that I couldn’t keep pushing myself the way I was and enjoy life. So I started looking for help and slowly grew to the point that I was able to have some time for myself. We started as a lawn maintenance business and grew into a real full service landscape company that built decks, fences, pergolas, water features and landscape lighting. After 18 years we discontinued the lawn maintenance and focused on the landscape and nursery. On the landscape side we specialize in xeriscaping with Texas native plants in order to conserve water and know that our plants will thrive in the Central Texas region. The nursery focuses on native plants and educating customers that visit about what works and thrives in our region. We sell everything from herbs, vegetable, shrubs, perennials and trees at the nursery. Whatever you might need to be successful in you garden or landscape we have at the nursery. We’ve turned our place into a destination nursery by adding hiking trails, fish pond, picnic areas, unique water features and specimen trees and landscapes. I’m really proud that we practice what we preach when it comes to the environment with our organic product and how we provide water conserving methods of landscaping. To be able to open peoples eyes to what’s possible in the landscape in our unforgiving environment is very rewarding. We have people that move here from all over the states and have no clue what the can do in the landscape so education is a huge part of what we do. When you visit the property you’ll find we carry all the bagged mulches, garden soil and amendments along with seeds for the garden or wildflowers. If you’re looking for houseplants you’ll find a great assortment all the way to amazing and unique succulents. If you’re needing landscaping we will stop out, visit and come up with a well thought out design and even install it for you. And you really want to build your dream outdoor living space let us design and build that for you as well.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
Even though I didn’t go into debt starting out I would advise people to have a great plan to succeed if they choose to start in out in debt. Just believing that you will be successful is a smart but if that’s your only plan then you will struggle. Reach out to someone that you look up to and has had success in business and/or in the field that you are interested in. If they’re someone that you look up to then they will bend over backwards to help you grow and become successful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hiddenfallsnurserykilleen.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nurseyman/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hiddenfallsnurserykilleen
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/grizzlys-hidden-falls-nursery-and-landscaping-nolanville
Image Credits
Becky Stinehour for Mr Grizzly
